World Bank envisions a 4°C future

Its conclusion? Please, let's not do this.

Many governments have set a goal for limiting climate change: two degrees by the end of the century, and no more. However, most projections show we're lagging badly. Unless we accelerate a transition to renewables and nuclear, we're going to shoot right past that 2°C limit. But even as the hand-wringing about missed targets and bad trajectories has increased, it's been relatively rare to see a detailed analysis of the potential consequence. The World Bank has now stepped into that breach.

In a report released today, the World Bank analyzed the consequences of allowing temperatures to reach 4°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Even the well understood problems—up to a meter of sea level rise, winter months that are warmer than our current summers—sound pretty ugly. The report also notes the possibility of tipping points and synergies make some of the impacts much harder to predict.

The report itself is a collaboration between the Bank's Global Expert Team for Climate Change Adaptation and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics. In addition to taking a different perspective on the problem of climate change, the report comes at a valuable time. It's been five years since the release of the fourth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the fifth isn't due until late next year.

So, what are the chances of adding an extra 4°C by the end of the century? The report estimates that, even if all countries are able to meet their current emissions pledges, there's still a 20 percent chance we'll hit 4°C by the end of the century. The longer we wait to meet those pledges, the harder it will be in part because it means we've already built fossil fuel infrastructure that has a life span of decades.

What does a world that much warmer look like? To give a sense of how hard it is to imagine, the report notes some points in the last glacial period were only 4.5°colder than present temperatures—and there were ice sheets covering a lot of the Northern Hemisphere. We've already hit levels of CO2 in the atmosphere that haven't been seen in over 15 million years. To reach 4°C, they'd have to roughly double again. And these changes would take place at a pace that probably has few geological precedents.

So, even the report's authors admit that predications are a challenge. Still, they do their best to try to paint a picture, and boy, is it grim.

Sea level would rise by a half-meter or more, putting lots of coastal infrastructure and plenty of people at risk. The typical summer temperatures would be the equivalent of our worst heat waves. In fact, the specifically note that normal temperatures in Russia would be similar to those of its recent heat wave, which killed 55,000 people and caused massive property damage. Meanwhile, the baseline winter temperatures would be equivalent to our current summers in most areas. Temperatures over land will rise faster than they do over the ocean, and some regions will be especially hard hit. The authors predict that typical temperatures in the Mediterranean will be up by roughly 9°C.

Rainfall patterns would shift dramatically, with some river basins seeing a reduction of over 20 percent in water while others get additional rainfall. That will add to the stresses on agriculture, where many crops will already be pushing up against temperature limits in current growth zones. Meanwhile, the level of ocean acidification driven by our emissions may stop coral reef growth as soon as the 2030s. Acidification may also begin reducing reefs by the end of the century.

All of that sounds pretty awful, but that's not the end of it. Even if atmospheric greenhouse gas levels were stabilized by the end of the century, it would take our planet time to reach a new equilibrium. Temperatures would continue to rise, with the global mean reaching 6° over pre-industrial levels. Sea levels would continue to rise, reaching somewhere between 1.5m and 5m above present levels. That later figure is higher than the storm surge that swept into Atlantic City, New Jersey.

In addition, the report raises the spectre of nonlinear events, commonly called tipping points, where a current equilibrium is shifted to a new state entirely. It points out there might be synergistic effects that could make a combination of tolerable impacts difficult to manage. For example, reduced rainfall, elevated temperatures, and saltwater intrusion from rising ocean levels could all have a negative impact on agriculture. At the same time, loss of port facilities to sea level rise could make importing crops from elsewhere a challenge.

If all of this is a bit shocking, then the report achieves its desired effect. "It is my hope that this report shocks us into action," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. "Even for those of us already committed to fighting climate change, I hope it causes us to work with much more urgency." He said that the Bank's goal of economic development and poverty reduction could be met without pushing against planned emissions limits.

This report won't win over any converts. The projections for change are based on the output of climate models, and people who don't trust them won't suddenly start doing so. Critics of action on climate change will undoubtedly pick over the details. The report notes research had indicated droughts were increasing, but a reanalysis of data that's only a week old suggests those estimates were off. This doesn't mean every aspect of the report is suspect, but expect it to be treated that way.

Ultimately, the report could be a valuable wake up call for those who are willing to accept many of the conclusions of climate scientists. It's easy to accept that progress towards emissions reduction will be irregular, but the World Bank is clearly hoping to keep that acceptance from becoming complacency.

The problem with solving this is that it's delicate problem that requires a delicate solution.

Too many people want to run in with a sledgehammer and think it's a simple fix. The problem has to be solved in a way that is economically viable.

This means that you have to lower restrictions on forms of power generation like nuclear that are cost effective and provide decent means of energy production, and you need to lower these restrictions and spur adoption before shuttering things like coal that currently meet our power generation needs.

TL;DR Global warming and it's solution have the potential to destroy economies. Let's try to prevent the solution from being as bad as the problem.

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Can we stop coddling deniers in the US yet?

Many people that are called deniers in the US don't deny that the earth is warming. They question whether it is caused by humans. I do not deny that human activity is the cause though, but that is simply my belief.

The science is settled on the first bit. It isn't so clear on the second.

I personally look at it from a pollution aspect not a warming aspect. So I rather see things phased out for cleaner technology. Just because I prefer clean air and drinking water.

Additionally any plan or projection regarding carbon emissions will have to be globally focused. Basically, unless India and China get on board there is only so much that can be done by everyone else

I agree with you, but let's not conveniently forget to mention that there are high-profile politicians in America, Canada and other "developed" nations who still insist that "global warming" is just "climate change" and that it's as naturally caused as a rainbow. Until we are still debating the science behind it all, we can hardly point fingers at developing nations who simply feel that it's now their turn to enjoy the benefits of development. Let's also not forget that the current situation was put in motion by a European phenomenon (Industrial Revolution), greatly exasperated by a century of Western irresponsibility to blindly poison this planet. Let's keep the blame where it belongs, and it really does belong with the West. But yes, I do agree with you - moving forward without China and India being on-board makes it a lost cause.

And by the way, read the comment above mine, and the mentality that many hold is quickly put into focus.

Regardless of climate impact, can we move away from carbon based sources of fuel, simply because there are better options for a lot of uses, it's cleaner, and it involves buying a lot less oil from people who, in general, seem to hate the rest of the world?

That, alone, is reason to move to local renewable energy as much as possible.

//EDIT:

Nuclear for base load, with well guarded breeders to deal with our nuclear waste issues. Regardless of the issues with nuclear, if carbon is a doomsday emission as it's made out to be, they're preferable to more carbon based fuel.

Wind & solar buildouts work for a lot of peaking loads, over a large enough area. HVDC transmission lines could replace a lot of our current lines & we could look at superconducting transmission lines elsewhere for major power transmission (say, AZ to NY type stuff).

Move to electrics for a lot of base transportation needs.

Convert carbon from other sources into a good liquid fuel with the excess electricity produced - if there's a lot of excess electricity, even reasonably inefficient processes can be done just fine. And if they have the added bonus of being able to vary rate to follow excess load, so much the better.

The liquid fuels make a lot of sense for aviation - that's one area where power density is king. Also, for long haul trucking and perhaps trains.

Move commercial shipping to sealed nuclear units, staffed by former navy types. The amount of crap dumped into the air by shipping is amazing, and it's in international, unregulated waters.

It's all doable, technically. It's a matter of political will to do so. And, as noted, places like China & India. The US and western Europe could drop to zero emissions, and we'd still have problems going forward with China building a coal plant a week or something insane like that.

Forgive me for being entirely suspect of this lovely doomsday scenario the World Bank cooked up, but just where is all this water supposed to magically appear from to cause a 15 foot global rise in sea level in less than 100 years time? Do these people have even the slightest clue how much water they're even talking about?

Yes, they do. It's going to come from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the melting of every glacier on the planet. No one is invoking anything "magically appearing", they're invoking mathematical predictions based on our knowledge of the world. Antarctica, you may have noticed, is an entire continent covered in about a mile of ice. There is *plenty* of water locked up there to cause all kinds of serious trouble for coastal communities.

Note that half of the Arctic ice cap is no longer there, compared to the polar ice cap of only a couple decades ago. Water is pouring off of Greenland at an appalling rate. Antarctica is not that far behind, and it's scary.

The endgame in global warming doesn't involve fixing the problem. Let's be quite clear: it involves taking a lot of money out of a great many people's pockets and putting it into a very few people's open hands. We've already seen the discussions involving 'carbon credits' and other craziness.

It's a scam. Don't be manipulated. Sure, the world is changing, we might have had something to do with it. But don't let it be an excuse for economic oppression by those few people who will live in the ivory tower while you toil in the field.

The problem in global warming doesn't involve the endgame. Let's be quite clear: it involves right now taking a lot of money out of a great many people's pockets and putting it into a very few people's open hands. We've already seen the discussions involving the global fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, astroturfed climate change denialism, and other craziness.

It's a scam. Don't be manipulated. Sure, changing the world is hard and we're all going to have to do something about it. But don't let economic oppression by those few people who currently live in ivory towers stick the rest of us with toiling in underwater fields.

Forgive me for being entirely suspect of this lovely doomsday scenario the World Bank cooked up, but just where is all this water supposed to magically appear from to cause a 15 foot global rise in sea level in less than 100 years time? Do these people have even the slightest clue how much water they're even talking about?

Yes they do, and so would you if you had been arsed to look it up.

There's enough ice on the poles for the water to rice 220feet, if things really had to go tits up.

Additionally any plan or projection regarding carbon emissions will have to be globally focused. Basically, unless India and China get on board there is only so much that can be done by everyone else

I agree with you, but let's not conveniently forget to mention that there are high-profile politicians in America, Canada and other "developed" nations who still insist that "global warming" is just "climate change"...

Interestingly in some other article's comments there are several posters asserting that it has always been 'climate change' and it's never been 'global warming'.

Forgive me for being entirely suspect of this lovely doomsday scenario the World Bank cooked up, but just where is all this water supposed to magically appear from to cause a 15 foot global rise in sea level in less than 100 years time? Do these people have even the slightest clue how much water they're even talking about?

Yes, they do. It's going to come from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the melting of every glacier on the planet. No one is invoking anything "magically appearing", they're invoking mathematical predictions based on our knowledge of the world. Antarctica, you may have noticed, is an entire continent covered in about a mile of ice. There is *plenty* of water locked up there to cause all kinds of serious trouble for coastal communities.

Note that half of the Arctic ice cap is no longer there, compared to the polar ice cap of only a couple decades ago. Water is pouring off of Greenland at an appalling rate. Antarctica is not that far behind, and it's scary.

I seem to remember something that said a large part of the rising water level is because water expands slightly as it changes temperature. For example, the density of water at 20C is 998.3 kg/m^3, and at 25C is 997.1 kg/m^3, about a 0.12% decrease in density. Since wikipedia tells me the average depth of the ocean is about 4000m, a 0.12% increase in volume for constant mass of water results in the water level increasing around 4.8m.

And to Arthmoor, regarding the source of the water: have a look at the topography, with ice, of Greenland and Antarctica. Just because YOU don't know where the water would come from, and YOU don't know "how much they're talking about", doesn't mean that such a basic concept has been overlooked all this time. Have a read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_sea ... Ice_Volume for some basics. And by the way, of course melting *sea ice* doesn't contribute to sea level rise.

Not convinced of that at all given the fact that the IPCC report about how the glaciers in the Himalayas was supposed to be gone in 10 years, and is instead GROWING rather than receding. Not to mention this poppycock about how Greenland is shedding water at alarming rates when it too is also GROWING its glaciers rather than receding them.

So the early consensus on this thread seems to be as long as we find a solution that doesn't involve changing anything we're currently doing, then everyone would be happy to get on board.

It's not that people don't want to change what we're doing they just want to make sure we're not sacrificing quality of life and or growth.

Personally, I'd like to find a solution that doesn't involve "legislating us back to the stone age" and killing off about 95% of humans, which is what it seems an awful lot of people seem to think is the best way to go.

Or, more accurately, that >>nobody at all<< thinks is the best way to go. Jesus, nice straw man. Which would be more tolerable if people (like you one assumes) didn't use it as an excuse to do absolutely nothing. It's going to cost some money in the short term, yes. But a pittance in real terms, and the money gets to stay at home rather than heading off the depots and tyrants.

If sunny Germany can generate sizable energy from solar power, then perhaps the 1/4 desert US can dip a toe in the ocean...?

So the early consensus on this thread seems to be as long as we find a solution that doesn't involve changing anything we're currently doing, then everyone would be happy to get on board.

It's not that people don't want to change what we're doing they just want to make sure we're not sacrificing quality of life and or growth.

Unfortunately any solution still has to abide by both scientific and economic principles.

You can't change the rules of physics, because you want to fly for example.

Unfortunatly for economists, economies cannot withstand the effects of science, or climate. History reveals a graveyard of societies that were ruined by relatively small changes in climate compared to what is going on this century.

If the economics do not operate under the changing conditions, the economics will be forced to change.

The endgame in global warming doesn't involve fixing the problem. Let's be quite clear: it involves taking a lot of money out of a great many people's pockets and putting it into a very few people's open hands. We've already seen the discussions involving 'carbon credits' and other craziness.

It's a scam. Don't be manipulated. Sure, the world is changing, we might have had something to do with it. But don't let it be an excuse for economic oppression by those few people who will live in the ivory tower while you toil in the field.

Nonsense my good fellow. Utter nonsense. If money is taken out of a great many people's pockets and placed into a very few open hands, it is only because that is how we have voted to distribute it. And have consistently voted since the Carter Administration:

Dr. Jay wrote:

Unless we accelerate a transition to renewables and nuclear, we're going to shoot right past that 2°C limit.

My bold. Every thread I've participated in contains a well-intentioned few who recognize the direness (from a human perspective) of the impending climate catastrophe, but quite consciously choose that outcome for future generations (they themselves won't have to live through it) rather than give those future generations -- their own grand children -- the choice of a nuclear solution.

If the choice were between thoughtfully controlled storage and sequestration of nuclear waste (which must be done anyway: nuclear power reactors are commercial reality), and runaway global warming, they choose the latter. They don't see it that way, of course. Their counter argument is that wind wave and solar alone can solve the electric power problem. But they have yet to show how.

Least ways, not to my satisfaction. A 35% solution is not a solution. Baseload and load-following supplied by gas is not a solution. Any solution more than maybe half again as expensive (short term internal costs only) as coal is not a solution. But I'm still hoping someone can show me wrong. Its not as though I'm not still looking myself.

I try not to be cynical. The GEs and Westinghousen of the world are steadily advancing the safety and reducing the cost of U-Pu solid fuel cycled pressurized water reactors. And the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Czechs are initiating research on ultimately-safe U-Th reactors whether we choose to join or not. The situation is probably not hopeless. But it could go a lot faster if the US were to exercise a modicum of leadership. Time actually is of the essence.

Forgive me for being entirely suspect of this lovely doomsday scenario the World Bank cooked up, but just where is all this water supposed to magically appear from to cause a 15 foot global rise in sea level in less than 100 years time? Do these people have even the slightest clue how much water they're even talking about?

Yes, they do. It's going to come from the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and the melting of every glacier on the planet. No one is invoking anything "magically appearing", they're invoking mathematical predictions based on our knowledge of the world. Antarctica, you may have noticed, is an entire continent covered in about a mile of ice. There is *plenty* of water locked up there to cause all kinds of serious trouble for coastal communities.

Note that half of the Arctic ice cap is no longer there, compared to the polar ice cap of only a couple decades ago. Water is pouring off of Greenland at an appalling rate. Antarctica is not that far behind, and it's scary.

Agree with you but one small point... I believe the Arctic, which is floating on the water like an ice cube, will not contribute a significant rise in sea level.

When water freezes it expands and that is why ice floats, it is lighter than water. 1/12 of the volume above the water is supported by 11/12 of the volume below BUT only if the ice is floating (or effectively afloat as with the Arctic). Run off from Greenland, the Alps, and the Antarctic will make a huge difference to sea level. The melting of the Arctic will "only" dump fresh water into the sea. This is may interfere with the Atlantic conveyor belt (wiki).

Edit: removed an assertion about the consequence of freshwater run-off from the melting Arctic as I can't find supporting evidence.

2nd Edit: It's not the volume of ice melting that causes the sea level to rise. It's the thermal expansion of the ocean as the temperature increases.

The endgame in global warming doesn't involve fixing the problem. Let's be quite clear: it involves taking a lot of money out of a great many people's pockets and putting it into a very few people's open hands. We've already seen the discussions involving 'carbon credits' and other craziness.

Yes, that is exactly how it worked out when that crazy communist Nixon created the concept of cap and trade and credits back in the 70's! Its been terrible living in the socialist hellhole he created!

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It's a scam. Don't be manipulated. Sure, the world is changing, we might have had something to do with it. But don't let it be an excuse for economic oppression by those few people who will live in the ivory tower while you toil in the field.

I vote for anyone who will preserve our standard of living and spread it as far and wide as possible, over the longest period of time possible. That is not possible if we ignore the problem of course, as conditions are already getting worse globally.